War For The Planet Of The Apes Review By Deffinition

War For The Planet Of The Apes Review

War for the planet of the dawn of the rise of the apes is a good but not great wrap up to the modern Planet of the Apes trilogy. If you’ve seen the opening of this review then you know they spent a lot of money on the CGI and the Apes look better than they ever have. They looked really simian to actual apes. They got it right on the monkey with that. It really aids the story when the effects are good. What? It will make you go Ooo Ah Ah. Fucks sake.

The film deals with a lot of heavy subject matter like racism, pandemic fear, slavery, overseers, concentration camps and more and it presents them in a very subtle way that feels natural within the story. Of course Humans are dickheads so pretty much 99% of them in this film are massively unlikeable. Except for Woody Harrelson who absolutely knocks it out of the park with his portrayal of the General. I went BANANAS FOR HIM. He was really FURIOUS George…hmmmm.

We follow Caesar from the last two films as he embarks on saving his son from cruel humans. Along the way they meet a mute girl and a talkative monkey named Bad Ape. He talks a lot…he’s a real…blaboon.

Unfortunately due to poor pacing the film drags quite a lot in the middle. There’s the typical Christ metaphors and when Caesar gets held prisoner for a good 40 minutes, not much happens. It picks up towards the end but I fee like there could have been more dynamics through the film showing all the opposing sides. And there are a lot of them. We have apes who side with Caesar, apes who side against him, apes who side with the humans, humans who side with the apes, humans who side with the General and humans who don’t side with him. There are a lot of factions but many don’t really get the limelight or their motivations explained which is a missed opportunity. Especially when we spend so much time doing very little.

It’s a shame because the moments that do pick up the pace are really enjoyable and Andy Serkis has once again done an outstanding job playing the monkey leader. The lad needs an Oscar.

What War?

I really think the title is misleading, war makes it sound like a huge epic fought across multiple locations with several battles and there’s nothing like that. There’s an ambush and one fight that doesn’t even match Game Of Thrones standards, you know where they say there’s gonna be a fight, it happens off screen, onto the next scene, and it just doesn’t feel like it lives up to the all out war between man and ape that has been hyped up for the last two movies

Overall I had a good time with it but doubt I’ll be rushing to watch it again.